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Monthly Archives: April 2012

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Red Sox Fans of the Day: Die-hard Red Sox fans in Oregon couldn’t be farther from Boston’s famed, 100-year-old Fenway Park. So one day in summer 2005, Ben Maciarello, the governor of the state’s Red Sox Nation fan club, asked his dad, Jim: “How cool would it be to have our family and friends trying to hit balls over the Green Monster?”

Dad was more than game for building a one-third Fenway replica on the family property in rural Oregon. And so the pair spent 12 hours a day — and $7,000 — in June 2006 building the Green Monster scoreboard, the odd-shaped “triangle” in the center-field wall, and “Pesky’s Pole” in right field. “We wanted it to look authentic,” Jim says.

No worry there — in giant letters, on the back of the Green Monster, you can’t miss it: “Fenway West.”

Every month we have a “birthday celebration day” where they get enough cakes to feed 100 and we celebrate all the birthdays in the office. This month a mandatory meeting got scheduled at the same time. No!!!

A meeting that couldn’t be changed because it was based on the schedule of my Boss’s Boss’s Boss.

I meant to post this right after it took place in February… I’m not sure what happened. Here’s to more timely posts in the future!

February was for overindulging in food competitions. The eating part of food competitions that is. First there was ChowdaFest during the first weekend of February. And during one of the last weekends in February it was The Big Cheesy – a food competition for…. wait for it…. Grilled Cheese Sandwiches. Ah-may-zing.

For $25 you get a tall can of beer (or coconut water for the non-drinkers), and an hour time slot of eating grilled cheese from 7 different vendors. It wasn’t completely clear to me whether you were only supposed to have 1 helping from each vendor so I went back to my favorites for seconds… and err…. some thirds (it was all in the name of research after all).

The winner turned out to be the Melt Shop but let’s face it the real winner was me with all my munching on grilled cheese. And not just plain grilled cheese (though that is my all-time favorite option) but grilled cheese with pulled pork and homemade BBQ sauce, grilled macaroni with a parmesan crust and six different types of cheese, bacon, tomato, and truffle oil, grilled cheese with a fried egg on top, grilled cheese with short ribs, and grilled cheese with pepper relish. And those were just some of the options.

Not the winner but my personal fave (and the bronze winner) was Lucy’s Whey’s with their Prairie Breeze cheddar with fig jam, sea salt and Olive Oil on Amy’s Bread. AND tomato soup and wine.